The tape measure home run is the greatest single act of power in the game of baseball, and the tales of these homers are the most cherished legacies players and fans hand down through the generations. Fully illustrated with photos of the players and aerial ballpark photos showing the landing spots of each stadium's longest homers.

In an unprecedented look at Babe Ruth's amazing batting power, sure to inspire debate among baseball fans of every stripe, one of the country's most respected and trusted baseball historians reveals the amazing conclusions of more than twenty years of research. Jenkinson takes readers through Ruth's 1921 season, in which his pattern of battled balls would have accounted for more than 100 home runs in today's ballparks and under today's rules. Yet, 1921 is just tip of the iceberg, for Jenkinson's research reveals that during an era of mammoth field dimensions Ruth hit more 450-plus-feet shots than anybody in history, and the conclusions one can draw are mind boggling.

Since the first pitch was thrown, MLB has tracked the performance of every team and player, documented every hit and measured every home run. And while some plays are part of the everyday game, there are moments in baseball when a player's performance reaches a new level of greatness and new records are made. The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records catalogs the game's most remarkable achievements, as well as some of the less traditional and quirky stats that all play a part in the game. MLB's team of in-house writers, researchers and historians have scoured the history of the game and written the most accurate, complete and definitive record of baseball stats and achievements. Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records documents the absolute best of the best and packs each achievement into this lavishly illustrated book where fans will be treated to never-before-seen photographs of their favourite players. Double-page spreads will show Henderson racing to second base to claim the stolen base record, while another full color spread celebrates Bond's crushing hit that set a new threshold for most home-runs. All the records are here, each with an account of events and spectacular photographs that make this truly the most spectacular baseball book ever published.

A feast of stories and statistics about players, ballparks, and teams--all arranged so that calculations can be skipped by general readers but consulted by statisticians eager to follow Schell's methods or to introduce students to the basic concepts of statistics. Illustrations.

The incredible inside story of power, money, and baseball's last twenty years. In the fall of 1992, America's National Pastime is in crisis and already on the path to the unthinkable: cancelling a World Series for the first time in history. The owners are at war with each other, their decades-long battle with the players has turned America against both sides, and the players' growing addiction to steroids will threaten the game's very foundation. It is a tipping point for baseball, a crucial moment in the game's history that catalyzes a struggle for power by three strong-willed men: Commissioner Bud Selig, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and union leader Don Fehr. It's their uneasy alliance at the end of decades of struggle that pulls the game back from the brink and turns it into a money-making powerhouse that enriches them all. This is the real story of baseball, played out against a tableau of stunning athletic feats, high-stakes public battles, and backroom political deals -- with a supporting cast that includes Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, Joe Torre and Derek Jeter, George Bush and George Mitchell, and many more. Drawing from hundreds of extensive, exclusive interviews throughout baseball, The Game is a stunning achievement: a rigorously reported book and the must-read, fly-on-the-wall, definitive account of how an enormous struggle for power turns disaster into baseball's Golden Age.

Sports expert Allen Barra's Clearing the Bases takes you to the heart of baseball's ultimate question in this, the ultimate baseball debate book, one guaranteed to spark thousands of heated arguments and supply the fuel for thousands more. Who was better, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays? Who was the best right-hander of the '60s, Bob Gibson or Juan Marichal? Who is the greatest starting pitcher of all time? At his peak, who was more valuable, Joe DiMaggio or Ted Williams? If Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax, and Roger Clemens had pitched at the same time against the same hitters, who would have won the most games? If Jackie Robinson had been white, would he be deserving of the Hall of Fame? Is Pete Rose overrated? Has Tim Raines been underrated? Who is the best hitter of the game today-- Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey, Jr.? Is today's pitching really that bad? Why can't modern pitchers go nine innings? Which are more valuable--good starters or good relievers? How important is the stolen base? What are the myths that still surround Babe Ruth? What was the most talented baseball team of the twentieth century? Which twentieth-century championship team has been most slighted by baseball historians? What has been the real impact of black and Latin talent on Major League Baseball? Is baseball more competitive now than it was one hundred years ago? Or fifty? Or twenty-five? Who was the greatest all-around player of the last century? Find the answers here. Clearing the Bases is the first book to tackle these and many other of baseball's most intriguing questions, plus it offers hard, sensible answers--answers based on exhaustive research and analysis. Sports journalist Allen Barra, whose weekly sports column, "By the Numbers," has earned him millions of readers in The Wall Street Journal and whose outspoken opinions on Salon.com are discussed regularly on National Public Radio, takes on baseball's toughest arguments. Using stats and methods he developed during his ongoing tenure at The Wall Street Journal, Barra takes you to the heart of baseball's ultimate question, Who's the Best?, in this, the ultimate baseball debate book. Regardless of what stand you take in these debates, you'll never think about baseball's greatest stars in the same way again.

How home runs transformed baseball--and America